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“Stephanie Kwolek, 90, Kevlar Inventor,” obituary on KTEN TV Online

June 23, 2014 - Dover, DE

Excerpted from an obituary by Randall Chase

Police Lt. David Spicer took four .45-caliber slugs to the chest and arms at point-blank range and lived to tell about it. Like thousands of other police officers and soldiers, he owes his life to a woman in Delaware by the name of Stephanie Kwolek.

Dr. Kwolek, who died Wednesday at 90, was a DuPont Co. chemist who in 1965 invented Kevlar, the lightweight, stronger-than-steel fiber used in bulletproof vests and other body armor around the world. . . .

“I knew that I had made a discovery,” Dr. Kwolek said in an interview several years ago that was included in the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s “Women in Chemistry” series. “I didn’t shout ‘Eureka!’ but I was very excited, as was the whole laboratory excited, and management was excited because we were looking for something new, something different, and this was it.” Read More.